DOI Heft:
No. 162 (September, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0363
Studio-Talk
Strang is not the least surprising part of the
richly gifted artist’s equipment. Many different
moods, many strange by-ways of thought, found
expression in the collection, which included paint-
ings, etchings, drawings in chalk, representing the
artist in portraiture, landscapes and subject works.
As an artist whose technique has the accomplish-
ment of one who has loved art for its own sake, it
is refreshing to note how all his accomplishment
is made obedient to poetic thought. The clever-
ness of technique is not exalted for itself by the
artist, it is subservient always to the greater aims
of his art; to his imaginative vision, informing even
the most realistic and every-day subjects, to his
insight into the character of country people’s faces,
as in his etchings of village life and villagers at the
fair. In his portrait drawings he is a deep student
of Holbein, and, like his master, the actual
methods of his work are so deliberately restrained
and Unassuming that only his analysis of the
sitter’s character may tell. The literature of the
Old Testament has been imaginatively treated in
his etchings. In that medium he has always been
wont to turn for subjects to romantic book-lore
when he is not projecting ideas of his own, full of
thought and literary significance. In his paintings
influenced by the Venetians and again by Watts,
he has learnt from them only to the advantage of
his methods, without affecting the individuality of
his own point of view. Only colourists can learn
from the Venetian School, and with a certain daring
Mr. Strang achieves harmony in the contrast of
the rich colour with which his imagination clothes
its creations. His landscapes are those of an
artist viewing nature imaginatively and not in a
matter-of-fact or topographical manner, yet one
would not deny to them that accuracy which is the
result of protracted and careful study. The land-
scapes of his etchings reveal his intimacy with the
detail of nature, though they are carried out with a
trace of the classical formality which is so apparent
in the work of Professor Legros. Every year
Mr. Strang advances rapidly towards such success
as awaits the very few in the difficulties of painting,
while as an etcher we know his accomplishment
ranks him as a master, and a master with that
imaginative vision of life which, more than anything
else, is rare nowadays.
« (
THE DISTANT HILL
342
FROM THE ETCHING BY WILLIAM STRANG, A.R.A
Strang is not the least surprising part of the
richly gifted artist’s equipment. Many different
moods, many strange by-ways of thought, found
expression in the collection, which included paint-
ings, etchings, drawings in chalk, representing the
artist in portraiture, landscapes and subject works.
As an artist whose technique has the accomplish-
ment of one who has loved art for its own sake, it
is refreshing to note how all his accomplishment
is made obedient to poetic thought. The clever-
ness of technique is not exalted for itself by the
artist, it is subservient always to the greater aims
of his art; to his imaginative vision, informing even
the most realistic and every-day subjects, to his
insight into the character of country people’s faces,
as in his etchings of village life and villagers at the
fair. In his portrait drawings he is a deep student
of Holbein, and, like his master, the actual
methods of his work are so deliberately restrained
and Unassuming that only his analysis of the
sitter’s character may tell. The literature of the
Old Testament has been imaginatively treated in
his etchings. In that medium he has always been
wont to turn for subjects to romantic book-lore
when he is not projecting ideas of his own, full of
thought and literary significance. In his paintings
influenced by the Venetians and again by Watts,
he has learnt from them only to the advantage of
his methods, without affecting the individuality of
his own point of view. Only colourists can learn
from the Venetian School, and with a certain daring
Mr. Strang achieves harmony in the contrast of
the rich colour with which his imagination clothes
its creations. His landscapes are those of an
artist viewing nature imaginatively and not in a
matter-of-fact or topographical manner, yet one
would not deny to them that accuracy which is the
result of protracted and careful study. The land-
scapes of his etchings reveal his intimacy with the
detail of nature, though they are carried out with a
trace of the classical formality which is so apparent
in the work of Professor Legros. Every year
Mr. Strang advances rapidly towards such success
as awaits the very few in the difficulties of painting,
while as an etcher we know his accomplishment
ranks him as a master, and a master with that
imaginative vision of life which, more than anything
else, is rare nowadays.
« (
THE DISTANT HILL
342
FROM THE ETCHING BY WILLIAM STRANG, A.R.A